bruce munro

Artist Statement

I discovered light as a medium first in my professional career, outside of fine art. I had studied painting during school in Britain but needed to earn a living and found myself doing that in Australia, manufacturing display signs using a glowing ultra violet plastic whose properties I just loved. When I decided to work in light, I chose it very carefully because I felt that I had too many thoughts and ideas about everything and I needed some kind of focus. I thought that by working in a medium that was very pure and true I could then have the opportunity to express lots of different ideas that filled my head.

In my early 40s, I began making things that using repurposed manufacturing components and light that were personal. I realized that I had always been striving to be so different, to make my art different, but starting then I began looking for shared experience. I've kept sketchbook journals for the last 40 years and had recorded moments and memories of feeling connected with the world - and I realized that a lot of that could be expressed by light. Our experiences of being connected to the world in its largest sense, of being part of an essential pattern, became my subject matter.

Bio

British artist Bruce Munro (b. 1959) is best known for immersive large-scale mixed-media installations based on his interest in the medium of light. Munro was born in London in 1959 and studied fine art at Bristol Polytechnic. He moved to Australia in the 1980s where he worked within the lighting design industry. On his return to the UK in 1992 he settled in West Wiltshire and has designed contemporary residential light art pieces and very large walk-through outdoor light-based installations.